“I really need to feel it first, if I’m to assess it properly.” His stare was implacable.
Nahum relented, knowing it made sense, and addressed the humans. “Cover your ears. It will help a little.”
Zee flipped the lid, and immediately Belial’s power rolled out. Actually, roll was the wrong word. It reared up like a jack-in-the-box, and everyone except the Nephilim recoiled. Insidious whispers assaulted them like spears, and Zee quickly snapped the lid shut again.
“Enough?” Nahum asked JD, who looked pale with shock.
He swallowed. “They’re more than I expected.”
“I did warn you.”
JD waved his concerns away. “I had to know.” Wrinkling his nose with distaste, JD pointed to a hexagonal area to the right of the eternal flames. “Put it there for now. You all need to stand over there.” He pointed to an area on the far side of the lab. “There’s a line of pure obsidian. Stand behind it. I have one more test to make on the sample ring.”
JD had made several alterations to the lab, and now had his mass of strange, gemstone-powered beams pointed at another octagonal shape laid out on the ground made only of precious metals. The ring they had found in the garden was at the centre, and JD had erected a forcefield around the whole area.
Everyone shuffled nervously back, and Nahum stood next to Olivia, ready to protect her.
“Er, JD,” Harlan asked, “is it safe for us to stay?”
“Absolutely. But perhaps,” he pointed to a box on the table close to where they stood, “wear those to shield your eyes.”
The box contained dark-tinted goggles, and JD pulled a pair out of his pocket and set them over his eyes while the others followed suit. Immediately, the room was plunged into muted colours. Odd fields of energy were visible in different areas of the lab, and the obsidian line presented a dark shield in front of them. Nahum was well out of his depth. Nothing in this room made much sense, and only Jackson seemed to have some knowledge of what JD was talking about.
After a few moments of nervous anticipation, JD activated his beams that were directed at Belial’s ring and a corona of light exploded around it, contained within the grid.
“What the actual fuck is that?” Maggie yelled, staggering backward into Jackson. “It’s like a frigging bomb went off!”
No one answered, because no one knew, and JD was far too absorbed in his work.
The light swelled and receded, colours radiating with changing intensity as JD manipulated his instruments. For a brief moment, a writhing figure seemed caught in the glow, and then it blinked out as the light pulsed and then vanished completely.
JD whooped. “I did it!”
“Stay here,” Nahum told Olivia, before racing after his brothers. He felt deflated, as if more should have happened. “Was that it? Belial is gone?”
JD had entered the grid, and he picked up the warped metal ring with tongs. The gemstone had utterly vanished, and the metal was cracked and charred. “What do you mean, was that it? Have you any idea of the power I used to do this? Yes! He’s gone!”
Zee reached forward, plucking the ring from the tong. “Holy shit. He has gone. No Belial. JD, you’re a bloody genius.”
“I know.”
Nahum couldn’t quite believe it, and he took it from Zee. The ring was completely inert. “How?”
“The right combination of gemstones, set at the correct frequency, a combination of planetary energies, and the right conjunctions on the grid. A certain celestial combination. It’s complicated.”
Eli was flushed with excitement. “So, you can really do it? You can do the same to those?” He pointed at the box.
“I can indeed. But,” JD wagged a finger, “this ring had already been weakened by the immensity of my field around the house. Those have not been. And there are a lot of them.”
“So we do them one at a time,” Zee suggested.
“Oh, no.” JD shook his head, a spark of excitement kindling in his eyes. “We don’t want a trickle effect. I thought you wanted to knock Belial off his perch?”
“Yes, especially seeing as Gabe and the others are attacking Jiri’s stronghold tonight.” Nahum checked his watch, fearful for their safety. “Right now, in fact.”
JD rubbed his hands together. “Then let’s tackle them all together.”
“But will deactivating those affect all the others?”
“If we do it in one big strike, perhaps. Probably.” JD nodded with conviction, eyes on the box.
Nahum felt renewed hope surge through him. This could be the solution to everything…if they didn’t bring Belial’s fury down on all of them.
His brothers, however, did not look reassured, and Zee asked JD, “Is it safe?”
“God’s balls, no! I suggest we add a couple of extra protective fields, just in case.”
Thirty
Gabe rested his hand on his sword hilt, eyeing the door at the end of the first-floor corridor.
“Describe the room’s layout,” he said to Dorian, who had escorted them.
“It’s windowless. The desk is next to the wall on the left, and there’s a seating area in the right corner, and a pool table on the right, too. It’s a big room.”
“A pool table? In his War Room?”
Dorian grimaced. He was leaner than Gabe, but still muscular, his dark hair tied back at the nape of his neck. “It’s his private space for him and his lieutenants. He dangles it in front of us as some kind of private club. I want no part of it.”
